"Evasive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in preserving silence about the Sunday's escapade. It never occurred to Mrs. Rolleston to enquire what time she had returned, and an evasive answer to Cecil was all that it entailed. But she was very much perplexed by the change in Captain Du Meresq's manner. The cold civility recommended by Miss Opie seemed all on his side. Nothing but good-humoured indifference was apparent in his manner. Their acquaintance ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... evasive answer. The truth was, that for some time past my appearance, owing to the state of my finances, had been rather shabby; and I did not wish to expose a fashionable young man like Francis Ardry, who lived in a fashionable neighbourhood, to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... most of it back, and I'd rather not express any opinions, Corporal," was Green's evasive reply. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... Hujir evasive thus replies: "Through all the extended earth his glory flies! Whenever dangers round the nation close, Rustem approaches, and repels its foes; And shouldst thou see him mix in mortal strife, Thou'dst think 'twere easier to escape with life From tiger fell, or demon—or the fold Of the chafed ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... a graphic account of his finding the musician asleep with an overturned candle by his side and the conflagration well started. Spabbink gave HIS version some days later, when he had partially recovered from the shock of his midnight castigation and immersion, but the gentle pitying smiles and evasive comments with which his story was greeted warned him that the public ear was not at his disposal. He refused, however, to attend the ceremonial presentation of the Royal Humane ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... to the editors. They were polite, they admitted the justice of her stand, but they were evasive. Mrs. Knefler opened her paper the next morning after she had made the rounds, to find not a single word about the danger to ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... adversary the theory ever encountered. It was not so alien to Catholic theology as is here stated, and before the time of Jurieu is more often found among Catholic than Protestant writers. When it was put forward, in guarded, dubious, and evasive terms, by Petavius, the indignation in England was as great as in 1846. The work which contained it, the most learned that Christian theology had then produced, could not be reprinted over here, lest it should supply ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... declared that they had heard neither bell nor whistle. Most of these witnesses had been in the grove, two or three in the train; two, residents of the vicinity, testified that they had complained to the Railroad Commission about that crossing, and had received evasive answers to the effect that it was the duty of citizens to look out for themselves. On cross-examination they declared they had no objection to grade crossings which were properly safeguarded; this crossing was a death-trap. (Stricken out.) Mr. Billings made the mistake ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... distracted between his desire to preserve Dare from the consequences of folly, and a gentlemanly wish to keep as close to the truth as was compatible with that condition, his answers had not appeared to Paula to be particularly evasive, the conjuncture being one in which a handsome heiress's shrewdness was prone to overleap itself by setting down embarrassment on the part of the man she questioned to a mere lover's difficulty in steering ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... counted by the hours, and put so many mammas in a pother, is gone!—The hands of the hall-clock are almost perpendicular—it wants but half-an-hour of midnight!—Several anxious mammas have sent several times for their several little ones; and the several servants have been sent away with several evasive answers—for "the little dears are enjoying themselves so much!"—"Mrs. Brown's compliments to Mrs. Fidgets, and would she permit the little Fidgets to stay just ten minutes longer?" No!—the Fidgety footman ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... Or had I displeased her by letting Mr. P—— know she wrote to me?"—"No, not at all; but she did not apprehend my last letter required any answer, or she would have replied to it." All this appeared to me very unsatisfactory and evasive; but I could get no more from her, and was obliged to let her go with a heavy, foreboding heart. I however found that C—— was gone, and no one else had been there, of whom I had cause to be jealous.—"Should I see her on the morrow?"—"She ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... the retired Cornicularius of Letter 18, receives a somewhat evasive answer to a petition which apparently affected the rights of those below him ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... among Wellington's acquaintances that he was a single man. He had come to the city alone, had never been heard to speak of a wife, and to personal questions bearing upon the subject of matrimony had always returned evasive answers. Though he had never questioned the correctness of the lawyer's opinion in regard to his slave marriage, his conscience had never been entirely at ease since his departure from the South, and any positive denial of his married condition would have stuck in his ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... his face changed. His evasive eyes were turned to me searchingly and sharply. He took the glass from my hand and slipped it into his pocket. I made a movement to pass on, then stopped, with a faint dawning of discomfort. For the heavy figure of the captain ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... not a slow man, and as an instance may be stated the fact that he elaborated his scheme of decentralising the powers of the Irish Government in a single evening in December 1881. I know he was harassed, nay, martyrised, beyond endurance, through the evasive volubility of Mr. Gladstone, which, both by mouth and letter, formed a heavier burden than all the Irish attacks; but he was a just and conscientious man, and I never heard of a case where appeal was made to him on which ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... pillow again, assuring her all the time that nothing this woman had had the cruelty to say deserved to be taken to heart. The girl, exhausted, cried quietly for a time. It may be she had noticed something evasive in Mrs Fyne's assurances. After a while, without stirring, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... upon him, did Dunne yield up the tale of how he had conducted the two absconders to my lady's house with her consent, and it was sought to prove that she was aware of their connection with the rebellion. The stubbornly evasive Dunne was asked ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... answer seemed evasive, It was "Ducky-doodle-doo! If his mummy loves um babby, Doesn't ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forget. God! What damnable evenings I've spent there—feeling as if you were slipping further and further out of my life—as if you were gone, and I had only the clothes you had worn, an odor about me somewhere to convince me that I had not dreamed you! Sometimes that faint, indistinct, evasive scent of you in the room has almost driven me out of my head. I wonder I haven't killed you before now—to be sure of you! I'm afraid of Hell, I ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... this condition of affairs about. It seems that one Mr. Ingersoll was appointed stamp-master by the Crown, and, on being requested to resign from such an obnoxious office by the Sons of Liberty, he returned an evasive answer. Consequently, a body of them mounted their horses and went out to meet him, as he was on his way to Hartford. Finding him on the road, they caused him to dismount and, in the presence of the company, now swelled to several ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... no real home since my mother died," was the evasive reply. "My home is wherever night overtakes me. I cannot tell you any more now, so please do not ask me. I know you will ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... an evasive air, "let's go over that 'Maud' one again. It's—well, it's easier to ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fully awake, I remembered something else which hitherto I had not associated with the latter phenomenon. I remembered that lithe and evasive pursuing shape which I had detected behind me on the road. Even now, however, it was difficult to associate one with the other; for whereas the dimly-seen figure had resembled that of a man (or, more closely, that of a woman) the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... did the clergyman's wife dream that Sheila meant to be anything else but evasive, so she followed up. To her mind it was absolutely incredible that any woman would dare to snub her—Mrs. Wooler—daughter of a dean, and possessing an uncle who had on several occasions been spoken of by the Bishop of Dullington as his probable ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... and methodically arranging them in a method that refuses to be concealed, advances in a rectilineal order, step by step, and with a measured gait, to a solid truth which he did not wish to be either evasive or complex. Highly pessimistic and a little affecting to be so, just as Renan was optimistic and much affected being so, he believed in the evil origin of man and of the necessity for him to be drastically ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... with me, and speaking in a strange, evasive way. He never spoke to me like that before. Do you think me blind, Frank? Do you think that I, upon whom your tiny eyes first opened—your mother, who has watched you with all a mother's love from your birth, ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... evasive, and presently he began to grow restless, and finally pulled out his watch, and jumped to ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... declined to interfere. This may have been prudent policy, but Hawthorne felt for the sufferers, and the memorial that he submitted to our government on their account has a dignity, a clearness and cogency of statement, worthy of Blackstone or Marshall. It is in marked contrast to the evasive reply of Secretary Cass, both for its fine English and for the directness of its logic. It is published at length in Julian Hawthorne's biography of his father, and is unique for the insight which ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... I opine that the bike is a harmless instrument when properly handled. The trouble is not so much with the evasive machine as with the woman who straddles it. It will carry its rider to church as rapidly as to the Reservation. Doubtless many women employ it to seek opportunities for evil—as a means of attracting ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... down almost to tree level at fantastic speed for a glider. The two enemy craft were hot after them, their guns flac, flac, flacing in continuous excitement, trying to catch Joe in sights, as he kicked rudder, right, left, right, in evasive maneuver. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... to see that this evasive answer only rendered the Laird's curiosity more uncontrollable. Mannering however, was determined in his own mind, not to expose the infant to the inconveniences which might have arisen from his being supposed the object of evil prediction. He therefore delivered the paper into Mr. Bertram's ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Evelyn, and he found it difficult to express himself as he desired. The spoken word, as he had discovered, is now and then awkward to use, but the written one is more evasive and complex still, and he shook his head ruefully over the production when he laid down his pen. This was, perhaps, unnecessary, for having grown calm he had framed a terse and forcible appeal to the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... abruptly. Then he came slowly, and touched me in a queer evasive way on my shoulder. Finally he drew a long breath, and gripped me by the arm. "Don't you recognize it?" "It's the dream! See! The stone wall—the field—the sumac! Now that's ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... matter in which we are mutually interested," was my evasive answer. Then, after a pause, I looked straight into her eyes, and added very earnestly: "I wonder whether if I should require your help, Mrs. Cullerton, you would ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... grudgingly relinquished the moments in the soft evening air. It was curious how much latitude they gave him—curious, also, that the magistrate, after his second fruitless visit a few days ago, had not returned. As Renwick had continued evasive the magistrate had grown angry and at last had threatened him with the visit of one who would make him speak. Who was this new inquisitor to be? Someone in higher authority? Or perhaps some secret service agent who had finally succeeded in getting some clews ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... he was being a little evasive, but she did not seem to notice it. As she took his drift, her relief and happiness were manifest. And he had never noticed before how clear and pretty her eyes were; they were the most honest eyes he had ever seen. She looked at him very steadily as he explained, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... meeting of the Baptist Young People's Union in Baltimore a letter was sent to the secretary of the organization and the editor of the Baptist Union, in behalf of the Negroes, who the year before had not been well treated at Toronto, he sent back an evasive answer, saying that the policy of his society was to encourage local unions to affiliate with their ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... appeared in a two-seated wagon and offered to take me to my destination, I felt that I had to go with him, though I did not like his appearance. He was a huge, muscular person, with a protruding jaw and a singularly evasive eye; but I reflected that his forbidding expression might be due, in part at least, to the prospect of the long night drive through the woods, to which possibly he objected as much ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... vein of something evasive in Mary's character that she let me hear first of her engagement to Justin through the Times. Away there in Scotland she got I suppose new perspectives, new ideas; the glow of our immediate passion faded. The thing must have ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... cocksure of that," he cautioned her. "Here is a mighty evasive bird. For, suppose we were elsewhere, then there would be here, and here would ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... would know, Sees the face of time change colour as its tides recoil and flow. All his hope and fear and faith and doubt, if aught at all they be, Live the life of clouds and sunbeams, born of heaven or earth or sea. All are buoyed and blown and brightened by their hour's evasive breath: All subside and quail and darken when their hour is done to death. Yet, ere faith, a wandering water, froze and curdled into creeds, Earth, elate as heaven, adored the light that quickens dreams ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... oppose him politically call Smuts "Slim Jannie." The Dutch word "slim" means tricky and evasive. Not so very long ago Smuts was in a conference with some of his countrymen who were not altogether friendly to him. He had just remarked on the long drought that was prevailing. One of the men present went to the window and looked out. When asked ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... rather sombre house was quick with colour and with beauty. The celebrated "Diamond Horseshoe," the tiers of the galleries, and the floor of the house were vivid with dresses, shimmering and glinting with all the evasive shades of the spectrum, with here a flash of splendid jewels, there the slow and sumptuous flutter of a great ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Indian before. It was Cornstalk who was holding them to the bloody work. His voice at times sounded very close, but although we all knew his death would count a greater coup than the scalps of a hundred braves we never could get him. He was too shrewd and evasive. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... states, slave and free, north and south, east and west, according to their population. Those forming the Confederacy paid no attention to the call. The governors of the border slave states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri) returned evasive or insulting answers. ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... bureau drawer or chest full of the beautiful little garments waiting and ready for an expected child can never doubt the wisdom of a child's knowing from the start some better version of the story than any of the evasive temporizings of the ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... hotel or in the various restaurants and theatres they frequented. But she never seemed to do more than bow to them, and though it was evident that her appearance aroused flattering notice, she discouraged attentions and was smilingly evasive when approached. Nevertheless, she was full of engagements. One day she would have an appointment at eleven in the morning near the Arc de Triomphe, in the afternoon in the Boulevard Malesherbes; the next day it ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... a tone which plainly indicated that the evasive Shan-se had adopted a course which did not commend itself, 'how unendurable a condition of affairs is it for a person of acute mental perception to be annoyed by the inopportune behaviour of one who is only fit to mix on terms of equality ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... awoke. He asked the reason why she had been called away, but Hsi Jen temporised by giving him an evasive answer. And only at night, when every one was quiet, did Hsi Jen at length give him a full account of the whole matter. Pao-y was delighted beyond measure. "I'll see now," he said, with a face beaming with smiles, "whether you'll go back home or ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... exquisite theme. The whole symphony of human nature seems to rise and spread its wings in a glorious harmony of pairs and twos of a kind melting in passionate octaves and triplets. The groping, ardent, distracted, thwarted, but ever protesting bass, set against a coquettish, evasive, yet timidly yielding treble; the occasional introduction of a mysterious minor in the midst of a well-authenticated major, gives us an intimation that wooing ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... time Gladys and I, quite ignorant of seamanship and everything pertaining to it, were watching the doomed ship, and from time to time asked anxiously what was the meaning of all the excitement. The men returned us evasive answers, like the kind-hearted fellows they were, and cheered us up in every possible way. Presently we heard signals of distress (only we didn't know they were signals of distress then), and our companions saw that the ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to glance at the possibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it important in order to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which he gets are generally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions upon the matter as well as he can. Sensible men have been known to say that the straightener should in strict confidence be told of every physical ailment that is likely to bear upon the case; but people are naturally shy of doing this, for ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... of those who wore purple, and was related to the king; that he had been lately sent into Africa with four thousand Macedonians and a sum of money to assist Hannibal and the Carthaginians." The Macedonians, on being interrogated on these points, proceeded to answer in a subtle and evasive manner; but without waiting for the conclusion of their reply they were told, "that the king was seeking occasion for war, and that if he persisted he would soon obtain his object. That the treaty had been doubly ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... tackled him on the subject, and though at first Tom was disposed to be evasive in his answers, finding that I had all the facts, he at length admitted the ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... clear to me as if it had been revealed. Monsieur de G—'s double attentions; his spiteful look at my refusal; his occupying himself wholly with Madame d'Albret after I refused him; her wishing to get rid of me, by sending me to England with Madame Bathurst, and her subsequent false and evasive conduct. Monsieur de G—had had his revenge, and gained his point at the same time. He had obtained the wealth of Madame d'Albret to squander at the gaming-table, and had contrived, by some means or another, to ruin me in her good opinion. I perceived at once ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... has been shadowing me all morning, Pennington," I advised him. "He 's as shifty and evasive as a fox. Fall half a block behind me, and if he shows up again give me a signal and close in. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... the freedman was devoted to him. Every now and then she perceived that his eye rested on her with a compassionate expression, and when she inquired whether he were anxious about the sufferer, he gave her some evasive answer, quite unlike his usual decisive speech. This added to her alarm. At last his dissatisfied and unsatisfactory replies vexed the usually patient girl, and she told him so; for she could not suspect how painfully her triumph in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with me about something disagreeable," thought Morris to himself as he dabbed viciously at an evasive sausage. He was not fond of these domestic conversations. Nor was he in the least reassured by his father's airy and informed comments upon the contents of the "Globe," which always arrived by post, and the marvel of its daily "turnover" article, whereof the perpetual ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... had not been as pleasant as he anticipated; the horse was a nuisance to look after; and then the country taverns were snuffy and unendurable. As to where he had been and what he had seen—he must have seen something and been somewhere in eight days—his answers were so evasive that Miss Mildred was positive something distractingly romantic had befallen ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... year 1892-93 there came a sharp clarification in his ideas. He had followed closely the evasive debates in the Austrian Reichstag—debates which forever dodged the reality by turning the question into one of religion. "It is no longer—and it has not been for a long time—a theological matter. It has nothing whatsoever to do with religion and conscience," declared Herzl. "What is more, ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... to our commissary department, during the next few days, went from bad to worse. Doyle advised me not to take Isbel to task, and was rather evasive of reasons for so advising me. Of course I listened and attended to my old guide's advice, but I fretted under the restraint. We had a spell of bad weather, wind and rain, and hail off and on, and at length, the third day, a ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Brussels and the procrastinating habits of the Spanish king added immensely to the regent's perplexities. She could not act on her own initiative, and her appeals to Philip were either disregarded or after long delay met by evasive replies. ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... mind. It seemed as if I had some contagious disease, from which every man shrunk with alarm, and left me to perish unassisted and alone. I asked one man and another to explain to me the meaning of these appearances; but every one avoided the task, and answered in an evasive and ambiguous manner. I sometimes supposed that it was all a delusion of the imagination; till the repetition of the sensation brought the reality too painfully home to my apprehension. There are few things that give a greater shock to the mind, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... one must remember, is a slightly evasive word. Absolute property hardly exists—absolute, that is to say, in the sense of unlimited right of disposal; almost all property is incomplete and relative. A man, under our present laws, has no absolute ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... as it was, it was not all a joke. It had already shut the sun from all Rachael's sky. What was it doing to Warren—to Magsie? With Rachael in a cold and dangerous mood, Warren evasive, unresponsive, troubled, what ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... to regret my evasive answer. When a man gets to be real proud of his work of art, he wants somebody to admire it with him and tell him how nice it is. I had believed I should be close-mouthed about those letters, but when I had taken off the few at the top signed with Jim's ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... sich a question as that, Miss," was the evasive reply. "How could I begin to tell ye where I hear things, fer the air is full of all kinds of stories to-day. But I ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... must have made the art insuperably tedious to any people less fresh-spirited and more inclined to take themselves seriously than these Orientals. A preoccupied people would never endure it. But a little closer attention from the Occidental student might find for their evasive attitude towards landscape—it is an attitude almost traitorously evasive—a more significant reason. It is that the distances, the greatness, the winds and the waves of the world, coloured plains, and the flight of a sky, are all certainly alien to the perceptions of ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... Cinta was looking all over the house for a dark, worn-out thimble that she had been using for many years. Suddenly she ceased her search, blushed and dropped her eyes. Her glance had met an evasive look on her cousin's face. He had it. In Ulysses' room might be seen ribbons, skeins of silk, an old fan—all deposited in books and papers by the same mysterious reflex that had drawn his portraits from his mother's to ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... class of men mentioned in history has ever adhered to a principle with more inflexible pertinacity than was found among the Scotch Puritans. Fine and imprisonment, the sheers and the branding iron, the boot, the thumbscrew, and the gallows could not extort from the stubborn Covenanter one evasive word on which it was possible to put a sense inconsistent with his theological system. Even in things indifferent he would hear of no compromise; and he was but too ready to consider all who recommended prudence and charity as traitors to the cause of truth. On the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the evidence of the only living man, except the King, who was present at the central point of the occurrences. That this man was a most false and evasive character, that he was doubtless amenable to bribes, that he was richly rewarded, I freely admit. But I think it can be made probable, by evidence hitherto overlooked, that he really was present on the crucial occasion, and that, with all allowances ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... said. I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible. "We are now at a distance of twenty-one miles from the enemy. Stand by for missile launching and possible evasive action. Damage control crews on the ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... Mr. B——," said the spokesman, reddening with anger, "we understand all this perfectly, and think very little, I assure you, of such mean evasive conduct. Had you said boldly and at once that you favoured the other party, we would at least have given you credit for honesty. But you may depend upon it, sir," he added, "White never will get the church. That ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... particular form. This, however, was not the specific object of his visit, as will appear as we proceed. Keeping in view his real motive, the nephew continued his inquiries, always putting his questions a little indirectly, and receiving answers that were as evasive and cautious as his own interrogatories. All this was characteristic of the wary people from which both had sprung, who seldom speak, in a matter of business, without bearing in mind all the possible ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... give her six months of life," said Aesculapius.] "Well, six months or not," [replied Huxley,] "she is going to be my wife." [The doctor was mightily put out. "You ought to have told me that before." Of course, the evasive answer in such a contingency was precisely what Huxley wished to avoid. Happily another leading doctor held a much more favourable opinion, and said that with care her strength would come ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... nearly a year ago. The tiny spring shimmered and dimpled under its fringe of ferns. Ruby-red gleams of sunset fell through the arching boughs. A tall clump of perfect asters grew at her side. The little spot was as dreamy and witching and evasive as any retreat of fairies and dryads in ancient forests. Into it Norman Douglas bounced, scattering and annihilating its charm in a moment. His personality seemed to swallow the place up. There was simply nothing there but Norman Douglas, ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... THE FIRST, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable in his private character, and grave and dignified in his bearing; but, like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be trusted. If his word could have been relied upon, his history might have had a ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... close must be the concealment, how impenetrable the reserve in which he enshrouds the inner keep and citadel of his being! When the princess in the fairy tale asks the giant where he keeps his soul, he often gives false or evasive answers, and it is only after much coaxing and wheedling that the secret is at last wrung from him. In his jealous reticence the giant resembles the timid and furtive savage; but whereas the exigencies of the story demand that the giant ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of necessity ambulatory. To sit down before the rendezvous pipe in hand, and expect the evasive sailor to come of his own accord and beg the favour of being pressed, would have been a futile waste of time and tobacco. The very essence of the gangman's duty lay in the leg-work he did. To that end he ate ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Whig, was a confession that the party was non-committal on the issues of the hour. There was much opposition to both candidates. Many anti-slavery Whigs could not bring themselves to vote for Taylor, who was a slave-owner; Democrats who had supported the Wilmot Proviso, disliked the evasive ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... An evasive silence followed her question. Nevertheless his brown eyes pleaded his cause so eloquently that one o'clock found him sitting on the front porch, jingling the money merrily in ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... mother. As soon as Mrs. Talbert could command herself, she began to talk, and every word she said was full of sense, with a little gust of humor in the sense which was perfectly charming. Absolutely unworldly as she was, she had very good manners; in her evasive way she was certainly qualified to be the leader of society in Eastridge, and socially Eastridge thought fairly well of itself. She did not obviously pretend to so much literature as her mother, but she showed an even nicer intelligence of our own situation in Eastridge. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the Populist Central Committee, the schedule was promptly furnished and they were assured that their speakers would be welcomed. When they applied to the Republican Central Committee, to their amazement, they were put off with an evasive answer. Meanwhile they had Miss Anthony, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Catt and other speakers waiting for engagements and did not dare make dates ahead lest it might interfere with the big Republican rallies which they wished them to address. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... I had a lovely time to-day, with all the beautiful sights out in the country; I wish you could see how much more there is in nature since we have studied Christian Healing," was the evasive reply. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... and deliberately, as though weighing how much he would tell. His language was admirably evasive. Few perhaps would have detected the profound significance the curious words he next used unquestionably concealed. Henriot's mind rejected them, but his heart accepted. For the ancient soul in ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... her. I'll manage the rest of it; and I won't blow on you, either. You'll come back to the hotel, and tell me what you've done. And now, George," concluded Mr. Hamlin, succeeding at last in fixing the boy's evasive eye with a peculiar look, "it may be just as well for you to understand that I know every nook and corner of this place, that I've already been through that underbrush you spoke of once this morning, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... Mr. Shaw's authority and Mr. Redford's, except that Mr. Shaw did defend his action on public grounds and Mr. Redford did not. The dramatist had simply been suppressed by a despot; and what was worse (because it was modern) by a silent and evasive despot; a despot in hiding. People talk about the pride of tyrants; but we at the present day suffer from the modesty of tyrants; from the shyness and the shrinking secrecy of the strong. Shaw's preface to Mrs. Warren's Profession was far more fit ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... the night nurse were in command of the house. The only events were the arrivals of the doctor, his long stops, his whispered conferences with the nurses, and the unsatisfactory, evasive answers he gave as the family ambushed him at the foot of the stairs on ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... as skilful as his voice. "Well, I guess your having mine proves this one is yours." He rode up and received the coil which the Virginian held out, unloosing the disputed one on his saddle. If he had meant to devise a slippery, evasive insult, no small trick in cow-land could be more offensive than this taking another man's rope. And it is the small tricks which lead to the big bullets. Trampas put a smooth coating of plausibility over the whole transaction. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's occupations. Isabella and he had had an hour's interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for Heathcliff's advances: but he could make nothing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily; adding, however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship between herself ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... that period were necessarily so vague, or hopelessly contradictory, as various travelling swagsmen tried to embellish them for the benefit of the listeners in the men's hut, that scant courtesy was paid to them. More recent stories were evasive enough as far as substantiation was concerned; all save one, and that was a gruesome tale—a tale of a fallen tree stretching out long, jagged branches, sharp at the ends and pointing up a by-track used by the station hands, years ago, as a short cut to the branding yards. A high wind had ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... morning at intervals the mountaineers urged the big fellow to attempt the feat, but he always put them off with some evasive reply, or was ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... he wished to be courted to it; and the doctor was not disposed to purchase his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." They separated, however, with an understanding on the part of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings of past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... stowed it away in the hut beside the kite. The astonishment of the natives, when they came out next morning to stare and wonder, according to custom, was very great. Leo resolved to make a mystery of it, looked solemn when spoken to on the point, and gave evasive replies. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... Courts, and so threatening were their armed preparations, that he redoubled his efforts for the consolidation of British supremacy. He resolved to strike at Scindiah, unless he withdrew his southern army into his own territories; and, on receiving an evasive answer from that prince, who hoped by temporizing to gain armed succours from France, he launched the British forces against him. Now was the opportunity for Arthur Wellesley to display his prowess against the finest forces of the East; and brilliantly did the young warrior display it. The victories ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the evasive answer, and then he added suddenly, "By the way, where is the girl with the wonderful eyes you met here? What about girl ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... thinking man in politics are curiously evasive and difficult to describe. Neither the public nor the historian will permit the statesman moods. He has from the first to assume he has an Aim, a definite Aim, and to pretend to an absolute consistency with that. Those subtle questionings about the very fundamentals of life which plague ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... distinct explanation of her intentions, and plainly told her that he should consider a refusal as a declaration of war. "I want," he said, "no answer in the style of an oracle." He received an answer at once haughty and evasive. In an instant the rich electorate of Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand Prussian troops. Augustus with his army occupied a strong position at Pirna. The Queen of Poland was at Dresden. In a few days Pirna was blockaded and Dresden was taken. The first ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attraction to the place became irresistible. It seemed as if there I could recover myself and begin my life over again, continuing all its joys, reuniting all its companionships. It is obvious to me now that this was an evasive yet ingenuous effort to escape from myself, an awakening that had come to me, which I knew not how to meet. I revolved several plans for getting back to my native place and becoming a farmer. None of these were practicable, and I determined to go, trusting to chance to make the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... conspicuous position, and accepted Mr. Lyddon's invitation to take a seat in the miller's own pew. He felt he owed this prominence, not only to himself, but to Mrs. Coomstock. She, good soul, had been somewhat evasive and indefinite in her manner since accepting Billy, and her condition of nerves on Sunday morning proved such that she found herself quite unable to attend the house of prayer, although she had promised to do so. She sent her two servants, however, and, spending the time in private between ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of you as her daughter's friend," was the evasive answer. Eve seemed to accept it as sufficient, and ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... Zulus. The meeting asked for some relief for the evicted tenants who were roaming about the country, but the official significantly evaded the point. The disappointment of the meeting, created by his evasive replies, having overcome the proverbial native timidity when in the presence of authority, resulted in one petty chief saying to the Commissioner: "Local authorities levy a tax every year on each of our dogs. We don't know ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... give some evasive explanation, when Mali interposed with her simple, unthinking translation. "Them say, Missy Queenie very good and kind. Make them sad to think. Make them cry to see her. Make them cry to see Missy Queenie Korong. Too ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... pleasure of communicating with Mrs. Vanstone," answered this inveterately evasive and inveterately civil man. "How ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... that no trick was being played upon them, and that she deplored the discomfort and distress, but felt no real alarm. She was more inclined to evasive kindness here than to sincerity, for she had a decided uneasiness. The swift change in the manner and looks of her cowboys had been a shock to her. The last glance she had of Stewart's face, then stern, almost sad, and haggard with worry, remained ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... that they should stay proceedings in the meantime, they ought not to stay accordingly?" To this all gave assent except Coke, who said that "when the case should be, he would do that should be fit for a judge to do." No notice was taken by the king of this famous, though somewhat evasive, reply, But the judges were again asked what course they would take in the special case now before them. They all declared that they would not decide the matter upon general grounds affecting the prerogative, but upon special circumstances incident to the case; and with this ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... About had a freakish, evasive, many-sided personality, a nature drawn in too many directions to achieve in any one of these the success his talents warranted. He was born in Dreuze, and like most French boys of literary ambition, soon found his ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner |
